Girls' impressive performance can't stop Wildcats in first game

By Michelle Prego-Milewski / Special to the Skaneateles Journal

CAMILLUS - The Skaneateles girls lacrosse team walked off the field at West Genesee High School talking and laughing.

The Lakers hadn't just beat the Wildcats by five goals or 10 goals. As a matter of fact, West Genesee had won 11-7.

But coach Bridget Marquardt was in positive spirits, too. Senior-led West Genesee had opened its season with a convincing 19-3 over Rush-Henrietta, and the young Skaneateles squad had easily avoided a blowout.

The Lakers stunned the Wildcats early on, taking a 2-0 lead with goals from Libby Johnson and Jenna Lotkowictz.

“I was very pleased with my team,” Marquardt said. “I have a young team and West Genny has pretty much the entire starting lineup back.”

“It was a hard game,” admitted Wildcat coach Bob Elmer. “I think it's going to be one of the hardest games we're going to have this year.

“They definitely controlled the first five minutes of this game.”

West Genesee pulled together and rallied to take a 5-2 lead into halftime.

Skaneateles scored three early goals in the second half, but the Wildcats answered within 30 seconds of each one.

“It was frustrating because we worked so hard to get those goals and they'd score on fast breaks,” Marquardt said.

The Lakers were looking better, and cut down on turnovers from the first half to the second.

Skaneateles was dominating draw control and the passing became much crisper.

Marquardt believed the initial first-game nervousness had subsided.

“They're nervous and they're playing one of the top teams in the state,” she said. “I think nerves played a big part.”

Despite the improvements, the Wildcats' aggressive defense still resulted in loss of possession.

“One of the biggest things we work on in practice is forcing the other team to make turnovers (and) that's what we were doing,” Elmer said. “We were just pressing them to make turnovers, trying to get the stick check and come back down.”

The Lakers turned it over 23 times, which is something that Marquardt believes will become less of a problem in time.

“I'm disappointed in the amount of turnovers we had, and having the ball stripped, but that's all stuff that will come with practice,” Marquardt said.

Johnson led the Lakers with four goals, while Stephanie Rice, Lotkowictz (two assists) and Karen Vitkus had one each.

The Wildcats led in shots, 29-15, but sophomore Gigi Vaughn had an impressive day in goal with 13 saves, including several crucial late-game stops that kept the Lakers in it.

“She had a great game, she did excellent,” Marquardt said. “As a sophomore to come out there and shut West Genny down like that - (she) only gave up 11 goals and two of those were eight-meter shots, some were blank shots on fast breaks - she did a great job.”